Waiting For Andromeda

Christopher Hitchens, having demonstrated to everyone's satisfaction that blind salamanders disprove the existence of God (or something like that), adds this characteristic flourish:

... to the old theistic question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" we can now counterpose the findings of professor Lawrence Krauss and others, about the foreseeable heat death of the universe, the Hubble "red shift" that shows the universe's rate of explosive expansion actually increasing, and the not-so-far-off collision of our own galaxy with Andromeda, already loomingly visible in the night sky. So, the question can and must be rephrased: "Why will our brief 'something' so soon be replaced with nothing?" It's only once we shake our own innate belief in linear progression and consider the many recessions we have undergone and will undergo that we can grasp the gross stupidity of those who repose their faith in divine providence and godly design.

What I like about Hitchens is how often he slips into exactly the sort of self-satisfied misanthropy that you find among the people he theoretically hates the most - the nutty apocalypticians and Left Behind devotees, that is. If the world were to end tomorrow in the hail of fire, I'm confident that one of the last things to be heard on Earth, before the meteor hits, would be the sound of Hitchens and Tim LaHaye both shouting in perfect unison: See, I told you so!

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